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L.A.’s Lost Valley: When Hollywood Was 'the Pride of the Cahuenga Valley' | KCET

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L.A.’s Lost Valley: When Hollywood Was 'the Pride of the Cahuenga Valley'

Nathan Masters is host and executive producer of Lost L.A., an Emmy Award-winning public television series from KCET and the USC Libraries. The show explores how rare artifacts from Southern California's archives can unlock hidden and often-surprising stories from the region's past. Nathan’s writing has appeared in many publications, including Los Angeles Magazine and the Los Angeles Times.

The Santa Monica Mountains loom large in L.A.’s cultural topography, dividing the city into “the Valley" to their north and a sprawling coastal plain to their south.

Residents of the coastal plain in Hollywood or Beverly Hills would never mistake their homes as valley communities.

The origins of "Cahuenga Valley" are unclear, but the name ultimately refers to the Gabrieleno village of Cahuenga – once located, somewhat confusingly, in the San Fernando Valley. The village also gave its name to the wind gap linking the valley to the coastal plain (Cahuenga Pass), as well as the summit that towers above (Cahuenga Peak).

Likely invented by area boosters, the Cahuenga Valley name first entered the regional lexicon when farmers discovered a frost-free belt along the base of the Santa Monica Mountains. Soon, Cahuenga Valley became renowned as a horticultural wonderland where bananas ripened, lemons glowed, and delicate vegetables were harvested early in winter for frostbitten markets in Denver and Boston.

Later, after the real estate boom of the 1880s deposited townsites like Hollywood, Colegrove, and Sherman in the area, "Cahuenga Valley" became shorthand for a suburban subregion, an equal of the San Fernando, San Gabriel, and Pomona valleys. As with these other valleys, agricultural riches inspired the boosters’ suburban dreams.

“It is the dream of some of the inhabitants of this Piedmont that it will one day be occupied by suburban villas, since here people can not only rest under their own vines and fig trees, but they may luxuriate among banana and mango groves."

“It is the dream of some of the inhabitants of this Piedmont,” the Times wrote in 1887, “that it will one day be occupied by suburban villas, since here people can not only rest under their own vines and fig trees, but they may luxuriate among banana and mango groves, even in this temperate zone.”

Six years later, a travel guide predicted that “the Cahuenga Valley is destined to be one of the most popular and thickly settled suburban settlements of Los Angeles.”

Even as lemon growers organized the Cahuenga Valley Lemon Exchange, land speculators built the Cahuenga Valley Railroad, which steamed across the countryside between Hollywood and Los Angeles beginning around 1888, showcasing the valley's charms to prospective buyers.

Circa 1910 panoramic view of Hollywood, "the pride of the Cahuenga Valley," according to a guidebook issued by the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce. Courtesy of the USC Libraries – California Historical Society Collection. [source]

As lemon groves succumbed to suburban subdivisions and studio lots, so, too, did the sweeping vistas of distant hills that once confirmed the land’s valley-like qualities.

As lemon groves succumbed to suburban subdivisions and studio lots, so, too, did the sweeping vistas of distant hills that once confirmed the land’s valley-like qualities. Today, freeway bridges, apartment buildings, and traffic signals obscure views of the distant Baldwin Hills from most Hollywood street corners.

Moreover, L.A.’s rapid growth in the early 20th century shrank the psychic distance between the towns of the Cahuenga Valley and the city of Los Angeles. Where open countryside once separated them, the valley towns and city merged to form one metropolitan agglomeration – a merger that became a political reality in 1910.

Seven years later, the Times more or less stopped referring to the "Cahuenga Valley" in its pages. As late at 1922, the Hollywood branch of the Savings & Trust Bank published a history of Hollywood titled “In the Valley of the Cahuengas.”

By then, however, the name was but a quaint affectation.

A panoramic view of the Cahuenga Valley, taken circa 1900 from the present-day intersection of Normandie and Melrose in East Hollywood. Courtesy of the USC Libraries – California Historical Society Collection. [source]

This early real estate map – an advertisement for Harvey Henderson and Daeida Wilcox's town of Hollywood – emphasized the nearby summits of the Santa Monica Mountains. Courtesy of the USC Libraries – California Historical Society Collection.

A collaboration between the USC Libraries and KCETLink, Lost LA features the member collections of L.A. as Subject, a research alliance dedicated to preserving and telling the sometimes-hidden stories and histories of the Los Angeles region.

Nathan Masters is host and executive producer of Lost L.A., an Emmy Award-winning public television series from KCET and the USC Libraries. The show explores how rare artifacts from Southern California's archives can unlock hidden and often-surprising stories from the region's past. Nathan’s writing has appeared in many publications, including Los Angeles Magazine and the Los Angeles Times.

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When most people think about food access, they associate it with the presence or lack of full-service grocery stores. However, it only tells us part of the important story of what food access means in the United States. Here are 5 things you should know.